as long as you acknowledge the cambrian explosion you cannot argue against evolution mate. Theres no way around it the animals that are found during that time are mostly gone and we clearly did not live then. How can you even say something like that ^^^ with a straight face and then still maintain your belief that evolution is impossible??? Clearly something is wrong here. Now I am not denying the possibility that a god created the first lifeform--but if that was the case that organism went on to evolve and form all of the life you see around us. I dont wanna insult but you are being extremely blind-sighted and ignorant. Everything from geology, genetics, anthropology, biology all fit together under the theory of evolution. Who are you to discredit the thousands of brilliant people who have been testing and purifying this theory? It seems to me that you have set your mind on being stubborn even though anyone who knows a thing about what we are discussing can see your errors a mile away. Regardless weve been talking about evolution but I want to give you my opinion on christianity because although I am an atheist I am also pro-religion (weird huh?) I am going to church this sunday because it is a part of my culture and I agree with the notion of living life towards a greater purpose. Being petty and selfish only kills the soul...I will do my best not to be slanderous or disrespectful OK? Here it is: living in a materialistic society much like our own, a jewish-born man named Yeshua saw that greed was leading humankind towards tragedy, he also saw that judaism failed at fixing this problem. The difference between him and all the other realists in the world was that he saw a solution and devoted his life to it absolutely. Again just my opinion but Jesus would not care about how old the earth is or how or when life came about--you know where that came from--that notion came from delusional ego-centric geo-centric closed minded priests trying to answer the questions of their followers and establish a dogma. Why do you think Jesus denounced much of the religious establishments of his time? He had serious beef with the Pharisees because they used religion to make money off of the people...sound familiar? Basically what i am trying to say is that the real purpose of religion is to find a way for everyone to live in peace and that everything after that is irrelevant. I encourage you to ask yourself this question: if evolution is true, how does that change Jesus' message of compassion? No its the people who inherited his legacy that changed his meanings and obliterated his philosophy. The moment you close your mind off from the world is the moment you depart from reality.
There are, it's called archaeopteryx... EDIT: All higher order creatures have 5 digits and 2 eyes. Horses have 5 digit bones, though they don't have the actual 'fingers' - whales similarly have 5 digits. Why would God purposefully insert useless bones that look PRECISELY like they've only there because the forerunners of horses/whales had 5 operational digits? Why would God create vesitigial structures, like the whales tiny (non-visible from the outside) legs or a humans tail bone? You're thinking about this as though all lifeforms have an equal chance of fossiliation - that's quite wrong. Creatures with bones and other such tissues can fossilise easily, in a variety of ways. Things like bacteria, jellyfish, worms etc can still fossilise under the right conditions, but these conditions are much more demanding - for example, jellyfish can be fossilised by being washed up on a beach and coated with sand, but they'll fairly well NEVER fossilise in the ocean... which is where they live, obviously, meaning that for a jellyfish to be fossilised it's got to fossilise outside of its habitat. Compare this to fish - they die, sink to the bottom, get covered in mud and fossilise. It's thus much more likely that a fish will fossilise than a worm, but worms etc still CAN fossilise - it just takes special, unlikely conditions for it to happen. Let me explain your 'life must come from pre-existing life' thing... The earth was formed billions of years ago by a cloud of elemental dust and rocks being bound together by the forces of gravity - the earth thus consisted of a mixed bag of whatever elements were sucked into its forming gravitational field. These elements settle on the surface as it begins to cool down - many will go on to create rocks, metals etc, but many of them don't form such solids (flouride, carbon, nitrogen and so on) and float around in what's usually called the 'primordial soup'. This was a raggle-tag collection of elements floating around in a giant ocean. Logical enough, right? Now, elements bond to each other to form compounds. Compounds can form incredibly large chains or they can be miniscule, but they all require elements to compose themselves out of. So we've got an ocean full of elements bonding into compounds haphazardly, with the compounds formed being purely a matter of luck. After a while, the replicator comes along. This is a compound that has the ability to duplicate itself. There are two main ways, positive-positive replication (where each element comprising the compound has an affinity for the same element, which attract to each other and, when all the elements in the compound have their 'mate' split in half, to create two copies) and positive-negative replication (where each element has an affinity for a different element, thus creating a 'negative' copy, which in turn goes on to create a 'positive' copy that mirrors its' 'parent'), and either could have been our culprit for the first replicator. Regardless, the replicator became the very first unit of heredity - 'life' from no pre-existing 'life', if you will. As you can imagine, the replicator replicated itself, consuming all the resources that non-replicating compounds used to construct themselves... so, after a while the replicator is the only thing floating around. At this point, replicators are engaged in a struggle for resources (elements to construct themselves out of), and thus any copying error that creates a mutant replicator with the ability to dissolve other replicators to steal their materials will naturally gain an upper hand. Likewise, any mutant replicator that gains a 'shield' membrane around it to stop it being dissolved will survive the other replicators attack. Witness the birth of the single-cellular organism, or just 'the cell' if you want to save typing time. DNA is the ultimate replicator - and DNA is comprised of nucleotides, which are compounds just like any other that could of easily formed in the primordial soup... and indeed have formed in simulated experiments in which scientists reconstructed a 'young earth' and watched what happened. Anyhow, once the replicators 'evolved' into DNA (through natural selection, as outlined above) then it's a just a hop-skip-and-a-jump for that DNA to find a host in bacteria, algae and other primitive lifeforms... which evolved, over billions of years, into what we see today. Breathtaking, isn't it? Here's a question for you. You're putting the burden of proof onto us, to prove where life came from and the 'pre-existing' life that 'life' evolved from. My question - where did God come from? What did God evolve from? If he didn't evolve... you've got a major problem on your hands trying to explain his existence from no 'pre-existing life'...
whaa? god is......god, he doesn't need an explanation from us mortals. our only duty is to follow His divine word as recorded by man. lol
Whhaaat? So when does "Adapting to environment" not qualify as evolution? That is the fucking definition of evolution.
I see the light. Your post was like gods wings If you wrote a chapter in the bible, I would follow it without question. I would walk barefoot, and knock on 10,000 doors on Friday night, to spread your word. I will even print pamphlets in my own home, and write them off in my taxes. I will write off my lunches too, since I was doing gods will during lunch. Praise Jesus! Even if you write it in really confusing terms, and mostly talk about sheep, wine, and burning in fire, I'm totally your follower. If you include something about a talking snake, even better. Nothing is more believable than a talking snake....other than that fruit thing......Man, they shoulda made a reality show of it.... Tonight on Adam and Eve!!!!!!!! Adam has seduced Eve, but will he get her to bite the forbidden fruit? Then cut to a scene of them arguing over it, then a scene of Adam reaching for her fig leaf, and at the end have Eve slowly reach her hand toward the fruit. End of commercial. I'd pop the popcorn, and bring the spliff for that show lol Edit (Sorry, just cracked myself up thinking of how the bible sounds like a really cheesy reality show, lol........ From now on....when people mention the bible I will always think of it as a really cheesy reality show. Where fish eat people, and all our ancestors lived 900 years. It's like......Lord of the Rings Part 4: Reality version)
Humans can not evolve the way we live now, we have too many people moving around to different cities, states, even countries. The only way to evolve is a small population that never gets outside influence, so the mutation mixes properly with everyone. In this society if a gene mutated it would be spread around so randomly through generations that the normal genes would outweigh the mutation. The only way humans can evolve now is with Eugenics.
That's funny cause I was watching a show last night about how there are still tribes in African that apparently still use very primitive ways of living, yet they are still completely people. They've had no interactions with the modern world for generations, but they are still the same. You obviously do not understand the differences between mirco-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro evolution is a species adapting to its environment, therefore giving the varieties in animals we have tooday. Macro evolution is basically a t-rex crossing into a chicken, one species turning into a complete other species, which has yet to be actually proven. And you sir probably have one of the worst understandings of what the bible truly teaches, therefore won't even waste much of my time trying to explain. Your bias against the bible is far times worse than you probably think mine is against evolution. If you think the bible is full of shit then think how it taught us science Thousands of years before us humans actually discovered it. It talks about how every star is unique, how the water evaporation cycle works, that the earth is round when widely believed to have been flat. I don't understand how people could have had been getting this information back then unless the one who designed it all was telling them.. If you even study the bible you'd understand that us humans are in a time of government, basically showing us that we human beings Cannont govern over ourselves. There is famine, wars, so much shit wrong with this world and where does it all come down to? Governments.. and incase you guys didn't know, the prophecies about government are coming true at this very moment. I don't understand how science can explain prophecies being foretold coming very true thousands of years later. We are only in the pre-steps of what human life is supposed to be. It is very ignorant to run along with science and just cause there's something in there that science can't explain you guys just ignore it or make fun of it to make yourselves feel better, there is very much proof to the bible you just have to look. Despite how they are viewed upon, Jehovah witnesses are probably one of the few religions I've found to study the bible in an intelligent matter. Maybe it would help some of you to look into what they actually say, and not some hater website cause they are 99% lies and its ridiculous they can get away with that stuff, but eh whatever. There is so much evidence after really studying that I dont see how an intelligent being could deny it.
How exactly do you explain the existence of the numerous different species seen on Earth? Creationism There is no real difference between macro and micro evolution as they both happen in the same way and for the same reasons, i.e. it's the same process. You, like many creationists before you, attempt to portray the two terms as separate processes, whereas when biologists use the term, macro-evolution refers to evolution at or above the species level and is simply the accumulation of small changes ("micro-evolutions"). Stop trying to portray yourself as knowledgeable when it comes to evolution because to those who actually understand what the theory entails, you seem foolish. And just so you know, there have been Observed Instances of Speciation and just in case that isn't enough, here are Some More Observed Speciation Events
There are differences in macro and micro. I found this to be a good example: PREHISTORIC CATS AND PREHISTORIC CAT-LIKE CREATURES, You see even back to prehistoric days, cats were, and always will be cats, along with any other animal you come across. This is because god created each and every animals to its own kind, meaning it can give birth to offsprings of different color, size, some sort of characteristic to give variety, but it will always be a cat. If (macro)evolution were true, then why don't we have some cats with 6 legs instead of four, some being born with beaks or something along those lines? I know that it's survival of the fittest, but we'd atleast see fossils of these 'in process' animals, which we don't. Somehow the only way a fossil can be fossilized is if the animals is already fully formed .. Every spider has 8 legs, every human has 4 limbs. It's been the same way for thousands of years. There are species that just show up fully formed with no prior ancestor, hence very strong evidence of being created. Science has also gone to prove us the order god said he created the earth and things that inhabit it were indeed true. It's not like religion doubts adaptation, its how its been said how we've got our variety in our creatures for along time. Like where exactly has science disproven a god? If anythings its just gone to show more evidence..
I'm sorry, but with this sentence you've demonstrated that you don't really get evolution. I'll outline it. Creatures each belong to gene pools. In this gene pool, certain traits will be predominant that are successful under those conditions. Now, this isn't purely environmental conditions. Consider that lions and antelopes both live on the savanna, but antelopes (like all 4 legged herbivores/ruminants) have peg like teeth, a very complex digestive system (involving all sorts of bacteria, multiple stomachs, a ridiculously long intestinal system etc) and long, thick tongues - lions have typical 'fang' like carnivore teeth, a far simpler stomach and a shorter, broader tongue. The environment is the same, but the GENETIC environment isn't because the two have different gene pools that reflect their 'trades' in life - herbivorous running pack animal, or carnivorous hunting 'pride' animal. If a lion was to develop peg-like teeth, it'd die... not because peg-like teeth are a BAD 'idea', but because they make little sense in the evolutionary niche that lions fill. And that's not the least of it - it would be borderline IMPOSSIBLE for a lion to develop peg-like teeth (cats with beaks etc) because the gene-pool is a carnivorous one... meaning, obviously, that the creatures in the gene pool have ancestors who were carnivorous. If these ancestors only went back a few million years, a few throwback lions might develop with peg-teeth, but too much evolutionary time has elapsed for such primitive, ancient throw backs to be expressed in the population. Consider that the common ancestor of lions ('fang' teeth) and antelopes ('peg teeth') lived something like 30 or 40 million years ago... you really think that genetic variability is still going to be so high as to churn out ancient, ANCIENT characteristics out of the blue? Dude, that's the equivalent of humans being born with fur, for no other reason except that many, many millions of years ago our ancestors had fur. It's a ridiculous concept, because our gene pool has homogenised and become more specifically 'human' as our ancestors speciated and continued to speciated in a 'human direction'. As for your idea about cats having 6 legs - similar things happen (think of children born with extra arms, 2 heads etc), but they're always the result of embryological errors. ALWAYS, such things only happen in the embryo. Now, this fact offers a simple answer - the embryo can only grow as big as the womb it has evolved to develop in, and as such any creature with more than the usual amount of legs would probably get jammed and kill the mother and the mutant creature. The complex answer is that ALL mammals, reptiles, amphibians (I'd be tempted to say all vertebrates, but this excludes fish) will ALWAYS have 5 digits and 4 legs. That doesn't explain much, so I'll do the best I can - this is the vertebral 'body plan', this is something that is spaced VERY VERY deeply in evolutionary history. Ie, our ancestors back A VERY VERY VERY VERY long time ago would have had 5 digits and 4 legs - perhaps there were other 'body plans' subject to 'experimentation' back then, but the only one that was efficient enough to survive and pass on this 'body plan' or 'blueprint' to all subsequent creatures that contain its gene (every land dwelling vertebrate, this ancient creature is the common ancestor of us, turtles, finches, moles etc). Ancient 'rival' vertebrate body plans (6 legs, 10 fingers etc) could not compete with the standard 5 digits 4 legs 'plan', and as such we see not a trace of them today. As to WHY the current body plan should be so favoured is a mystery - it might be nothing more complex than it was the first to arise and all creatures containing it simply had the upper hand over their competitors because they had more time to adapt to the 'plan', or it might have been more complex, with the 'plans' competing. It doesn't matter, because one fact is evident - 5 digits 4 legs 'won', and this victory is embedded VERY deeply in our DNA. Similarly, spiders have 8 legs because that 'plan' came to prominence early in their genetic history. Same deal goes for insects, anything - it's this early stability of 'body plan' that likely enabled this seperate groups to evolve in the first place. Consider if they'd been constantly varying... there'd be no stability, just luck of the draw as to what you get. How can any lasting heriditary change be made if there's no stable 'plan' for the change to be made upon? Explain this further, name me some species. Remember, just because we have no fossil record of the ancestor existing (we don't have any records for MANY of these prospective ancestors - for example, we have no fossil of the common ancestor between elephants and snails) doesn't mean it didn't exist. It had to exist, by definition... Where, exactly, has religion ever 'proven' a God? EDIT: I wasn't being a dick before, I'm genuinely interested in your (and any creationists) answer to the question "Where did God come from?" How can you possibly reconcile asking us about where life came from when you don't know where God came from? Like I say, he either evolved or he didn't. If he evolved, well and good - prove it. If he didn't... you have MAJOR explaining to do.
WOWWOWOWOWOOWW i am sooo done with you ig·no·rant/ˈignərənt/Adjective 1. Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated. yup, fits like a glove
Didn't read the whole thread, sorry if this has been mentioned. So I've been watching Ancient Aliens lately (fucking awesome mini-series if you haven't seen it) and one of the theories is that humans are a genetically engineered species seeded on earth by aliens. Just thought I would throw that out there.
Well if people who don't believe in evolution (excluding species adapting to environment) then how would a god not evolving be a problem? lol you're only thinking in the mindset of an evolutionist. It is said that God has neither a beginning nor an end. God is and always will be, and for us humans it is very hard to comprehend since everything we know on earth has a beginning and an end. Looking at all the evidence, does it not make sense that god would've created us human beings as perfect beings, why many tend to believe we have this enormous brain, yet only use a mere 10% of it. Animals were made for humans' enjoyment, hence why every animal is so different from us in the ways they act. God made us in his image with intelligence, and us humans are basically mirroring this action with the creation of modern day video games. He gave us intelligence todo all these amazing things that no other creature is anywhere near capable of. Intelligence and the human conscience isn't something you can just grow, or 'evolve' simply by chance. It is an intangible supernatural thing which scienctists have been baffled by for years. Let me remind you that evolution came up only a few years before the discovery that life must come from pre-existing life. Before that people seriously believed that maggots came from rotting trash because that's where you would find them. You wouldn't expect to throw some legos in a clothes dryer and 'set it to the right circumstances' and see the legos suddenly build a working and fully functional building or car without any help from a grand designer, let alone this being the process which went on to create all the extremely complex and different life we have today. And I've said this quite a few times before, but the bible told us things THOUSANDS of years before we had discovered them using science. How were these people writing in the books able to know this stuff without some sort of communication from the one who created it? ..unless it was one hell of a guess lol. Just how the trees and the flowers and bees all work in a giant cycle, or how birds and whales migrate thousands and thousands of miles, or how the earth spins perfectly to give us an equal 4 seasons which is just part of a grander cycle that lets all plants reproduce. All of this just as if pre-programmed to do all these things, you guys honestly think all of that is just by chance, with no direction from some sort of designer?
You mean you believe in God by default? You disbelieve in evolution, so by virtue of that fact Gods' existence is somehow 'not a problem'...? It's said... by who? And what makes these peoples opinions any more true than contending opinions that God IS finite, God DID have a beginning etc...? Basically, how do you know any of this... because 'it is said' to be that way? HOLD IT RIGHT HERE! Perfect beings? Are you fucking KIDDING me?! Dude, all I'm going to say is flip open a medical journal and look at some problems that afflict this 'perfect' species. All of us 'perfect beings' suffer from things like constipation, broken bones, the debilitating effects of old age (why would God give 'perfect beings' the same effects of aging as practically every other mammal?) and so on, as well as birth defects like hydocephalus, PKU, spinal bifida... not to mention the high proportion of 'perfect beings' who die in the act of childbirth (often along with the baby) in countries without modern medical care. Now, there are also nastier things that usually kill people painfully or make them very, very sick, like meningitis, malaria, AIDS, cancer etc. Why would God invent these? Why would God invent cancer? AND, more importantly, why would God invent the meningitis virus?! Cancer I can stomach, it's not a seperate, predatory entity... but HIV/AIDS? It's a stand-alone 'creature' that exists purely 'to' kill people, and has no other way of life or reproduction besides to destroy the immune system very painfully and slowly. Either we exist or the virus exists, we cannot coexist... so why would God have designed viruses and people in coexistance? Is he a sadistic bastard who likes to watch us die painfully of the little booby traps he's made that kill us, because that's what any parent does who 'loves' their children... right? In addition, what is it that gives us our 'perfection'? Our enormous brains that you talk about before? By the way, these brains of ours are comparable (and certainly not markedly superior) to both many species of crow and dolphin. It's only our opposable thumbs that enables us to manifest this intelligence in the crafting of our environment to suit our needs... without this, we'd be just as much animals as dolphins. Opposable thumbs are a by-product of our bipedalism, which is what scientists (and, who knows, maybe even creationists too, not that their opinions on scientific matters are worth much...) generally agree started us on our evolutionary trajectory. I mean, would we still be 'perfect' if we went about on 4 feet? I doubt it... but this 'perfection' has come at a price. Look at this - Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Basically, our skeleton has had to undergo radical changes in order to accomodate our changing center of gravity, changing gait etc, which has (as we can expect) resulted in many problems for us bipeds. Here's an example - Bipedalism and Osteoarthritis Arthritis, asthma, hip problems in overweight people, our noses getting clogged in humid weather - all problems tracing back to the very factor that makes us 'perfect' in your quite opinion. Here's a wiki quote that says it nicely - Even with much anatomical modification, some features of the human skeleton remain poorly adapted to bipedalism, leading to negative implications prevalent in humans today. The lower back and knee joints are plagued by osteological malfunction, with lower back pain among the leading causes of lost working days.[7] These problems resulted because human joints are forced to support more weight in bipedalism, now that the body's full weight is borne on two legs rather than four. In fact, arthritis has been a problem since hominids became bipedal. Scientists have discovered instances of vertebral arthritis in prehistoric hunter-gatherers; arthritis is not merely pathology of modern lifestyles.[7] Physical constraints have made it difficult to modify the joints for further stability while maintaining efficiency of locomotion.[2] I don't mean to be cruel, but I want to blow my fucking brains out reading this kind of stupidity. Humans have been around for little over a million years, 'animals' have been here for hundreds of millions of years, humans need to pull their heads in and realise that we have no claim to superiority over any creature - the worm, for example. "Humans and worms?! You're insane!" you say, and I say "Well, you try living underground". You could never lead the life of a worm, no matter how hard you tried to. Why? Because the worm is greatly superior to us in living underground. Same goes for practically any animal. You think you're superior to a fox? Try hunting rabbits for a living while competing with foxes, without a gun. Who's superior and 'perfect' when you're starving and the fox is living as comfortably and nicely as it has for millions of years? Animals are NOT made for human enjoyment, that is a VERY, VERY dangerous mindset that is realistically and seriously one of the big reasons that we currently see such environmental depravities as our terrible record for species extinction... you realise that the dodos were clubbed to death for 'human enjoyment'? I'm a conservationist who deeply and passionately loves nature, so this view that nature and the environment is some kind of divinely given toy offends me to my core. I spend nearly as much time in the bush watching animals as I do at my house... maybe if you did, you'd see that animals are actually very SIMILAR to us in the ways they act. Most birds require their mate to help them build the nest and look after the chicks rather than just breed and leave... much like women searching for partners who will be good fathers and not just good lovers. In fact, many birds mate for life, like many of us humans. Puppies snivel and whine for food... much like a baby, crying for its mother to feed it. Cats get a rush out of sneaking up and pouncing on prey, which they often don't eat... they do it for fun, like people shooting animals for 'human enjoyment'. Fuck man, practically any insect you see will run away if you come near it or try to pick it up... just like any human would if he/she was approached by a giant thousands of times bigger than him/her. Of course you wouldn't, a clothes dryer tumbling around pieces of lego is a RANDOM PROCESS. Evolution is NOT a random process, it is based upon the NON-RANDOM survival/reproduction of favourable varieties and the deaths of less favourable ones. The two don't compare. What you mean to say, of course, is that the Bible has told you things that you interpret to mirror modern scientific discoveries. You will certainly never find in the Bible instructions to build a computer, or instructions to do anything besides building a bloody great tabernacle. These things are most certainly not in the same league as scientific discovery, because these Biblical 'prophesies' were never acted upon. It's only now with the gift of hindsight that you can correlate the two and draw the (erronously illogical) conclusion that the Bible PREDICTED such and such. Also, pitch me some examples here if you would, what are some of these things? Final time, NO CHANCE IS INVOLVED. EVOLUTION IS NON-RANDOM, IT IS BASED UPON NON-RANDOM SURVIVAL! It did NOT 'just happen by chance', it 'happened' by many cumulative and impercievable steps. We don't live on a time-scale long enough to see these steps, just as we don't live on a long enough timescale to slowly see Africa and South America pulling away from each other... does that make continental drift theory untrue? Seriously, this 'chance' bullshit is about the best indicator there is that the person you're debating with hasn't got a fucking clue about how evolution works. Chance, once again, is the complete and total opposite of evolutionary processes like natural selection, sexual selection... even mutation, in which good mutations survive and bad ones die out. Also, flowers and bees have co-evolved that cycle, they have selected each other in the direction of their interests. The brightest flowers attracted the most bees and thus got the most pollen spread, and the bees who visited flowers long enough to pick up the pollen recieve their meal of nectar. The two have 'evolved' each other by fitting each others needs to further their own. Your example about the 'grander cycle that lets all plants reproduce' is wrong too, the cycle hasn't 'evolved' to fit the plants - the plants have evolved to fit the seasonal cycle, and the seasonal cycle exists purely because of easily understandable and completely non-supernatural physics. No time to explain this, but it's common knowledge that you could just look up on google - try 'Why do we have seasons' or 'How does the earth spin' maybe
[quote name='grandmastersmit'] And you sir probably have one of the worst understandings of what the bible truly teaches, therefore won't even waste much of my time trying to explain. Your bias against the bible is far times worse than you probably think mine is against evolution. [/Qoute] When you said that, I was like OH THANK GOD. Then you went on to explain. Then I stopped reading. I don't have any more bias against the bible, than I have against Green Eggs and Ham. I'm sure they're both very good stories, that teach us excellent lessons. In fact, I found a talking snake once. I was high on LSD, and rollerblading down the highway when it happened.
And why does everyone who argues religion start the argument with "I Don't see the need to explain this to you" or something. Then, they go into a four page report attempting to explain it to you. I read the bible. Every single last word of it. That....was exactly what made me see it for what it was....a book of valuable and mostly very good lessons, written in a time where people couldn't understand what the sun was. The "Analogies" in the bible are just that. Analogies. Stories. The way that people passed on legends and lessons, for thousands of years. If Steven Segal came around about 3000 years ago, I bet there would be another religion devoted to him. Sorry religious dudes. I fully believe Christianity is at it's core a solid set of teachings. But that is exactly what it is, and all that it is. You find me a talking snake, a man eating fish, or someone who hears words from god who isn't in a mental institution, and maybe it'll be worth a second look. Otherwise, I prefer the Buddhist method on life...since Buddhists actually admit "Ok ok..sorry...some of our early works might seem like a bad acid trip.....but it's the moral of the story that is important". I think, George Carlin pretty much owned religion anyway already. Been there done that. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o]YouTube - George Carlin - Religion is bullshit.[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYW2xXxFVtU&feature=related]YouTube - Bill Maher lays waste to Religion[/ame] Bill Mayer